Читать книгу Starting and Running Your Own Martial Arts School онлайн

12 страница из 75

A word on choosing children as your target market: if you want to teach children, your target market will be the children, yes. But it will also be the parents of those children. Specifically, your target market will be young adults with children and the disposable income necessary to enroll them in your school.

Your target market should be defined by the image you choose. If your target market is young children, you probably don’t want to present yourself as a school for serious hand-to-hand combat. If your target market includes mostly soldiers from a nearby army base, teaching playground self-defense is silly.

In your idea notebook, describe your school’s image—the way you want to come across to students and prospective students. Who is your target market? Do you want to come across as a school where the whole family is welcome? Or do you teach mostly children? Or perhaps are you directing your services at just adults, or just a certain group of adults? Look at the choices you have made for your school. Do you want to create an image of stability and permanence, or do you want to look lean, mean, and highly mobile? Do you want a large school with a dozen teachers, a midsized school with you and an assistant teacher, or a handful of students who become like a family to each other? Are you a place where people can work out at their own level and have fun, or are you a training ground for serious martial artists relentless in their pursuit of excellence? If a reporter were to do a feature article about your school, what would you like to read in it? Finish this sentence: “(Name of your school) is a school that _____________.” Get as detailed as you can. Remember that the more detailed you can get now, the easier it will be to use the information in your marketing identity later.